The six environmental objectives of the European Union are the new benchmark in terms of direction and objectives to which not only European funds will be directed, but also private capital, said Sebastian Staicu, Project Finance Manager at BCR, at the conference “Investments – private funds, public funds, support schemes”, organized by Energynomics. “This is the political direction,” he said, adding that Romania’s targets for reducing carbon emissions were in line with European decisions.
Referring to the destination of European funds available for the Romanian energy sector, Sebastian Staicu highlighted areas such as ” the development of the renewable energy value chain”. This is a very interesting opportunity for Romania, in the context in which “we will have more and more production capacities from renewable sources, as well as refurbishment operations of existing capacities”.
Another way to attract investment in the energy sector is the contracts for difference (CfDs) scheme, “a guaranteed price for renewable energy producers even before the investment is made”.
Referring to the high electricity prices, Sebastian Staicu believes that we need to “become much more resilient as a country to address these shocks in the electricity market.” Given the price of gas and the price of CO2 certificates, “we can anticipate a price of 100 euros per MWh in 2022, lower than that at the end of 2021, but much higher than the price at beginning of the same year,” said Sebastian Staicu.
Renewable energies can provide in part the answer needed to increase the resilience of the Romanian energy system. “We see a very strong project pipeline in the market, comparable to what we had in 2013-2014, over 10 GW in new installed capacity. Sebastian Staicu also mentioned the transition from coal to gas capacities: “we need to have such capacities that can ensure a much greater flexibility in production”.
BCR is involved in financing companies with new wind and photovoltaic energy projects meant to inject electricity into the grid, companies that develop large and very large capacity projects. “The mechanism that we have developed at the moment is structured around the PPA-type instruments that the market currently allows,” said Sebastian Staicu.
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Energy efficiency is another area of interest for BCR, in line with efforts to increase resilience against high energy costs. Sebastian Staicu spoke about potential investments in all sectors, not just energy, “we are talking especially about the industrial sector, the food sector and the building area which is a big consumer of electricity and a big consumer of energy in general. We finance, we encourage companies to make such investments, from rooftop PVs, to new heating systems, to the rehabilitation of buildings, to energy management systems. The range of investments can be wide, it is important to have a strong impact in reducing the energy consumption.”
The conference “Investments – private funds, public funds, support schemes” was organized by Energynomics with the support of its partners: EY and BCR.